Monday, 22 October 2012

It's a Corpse Cavalcade II

When
the apocalypse comes – and surely it will whether it is tomorrow, next week, or
yesterday – and the dead rise to shamble across the Earth, the “lucky”
survivors are barely going to have enough time to grab their trusty .45
handguns, first aid kits, complete sets of Elvis Presley on vinyl, iPods and
iPhones, and whatnot before the cast of the corpse cortege are upon them. And
before they know it, Grandma is down amongst the dead… Only to get back up
again and be coming around for a bite out of her late dearest and nearest. Once
past their flesh-eating Grandmothers, most survivors are going to looking to
the government for help. Then the army. Then anyone. Which is when they
discover that their survival is down to them and their decisions. All they can do
is hope that their decisions are anything other than stupid, as stupid can get
them dead…

So with
everyone still occupied with the daily needs for survival and fending off the
brain feeding zombies, it will be the rare dreamer or philosopher who has the
time or inclination to ask that all important question, “How did this happen?”
That might not be a question asked in the zombie apocalypses you might see
depicted in books or on television, but when it comes to roleplaying it is a
question that not only has to be asked, it has to be answered too. Especially
in playing out a zombie apocalypse over the long term. The reason is simple.
Whilst in a roleplaying campaign the survival needs have to be addressed,
entirely focusing on soon becomes repetitive and quickly lose their drama. Need
shelter? Kill zombies. Find shelter. Need fuel? Kill zombies. Find fuel. Need
food? Kill zombies. Find food. Need ammunition? Kill zombies. Find ammunition.
Wash, rinse, repeat, as necessary. Which is repetitive and dull.

It is
an issue addressed and not addressed in War of the Dead:
Chapter Two, which as the title suggests is the second
release in the series. Published by Daring Entertainment through Cubicle Seven Entertainment, this is a fifty-two part campaign that charts the adventures and
travails of a group of survivors in the face of the rise of the dead and the
fall of civilisation. Written for use with Pinnacle Entertainment Group’sSavage Worlds, the campaign offers one
adventure per week so that a group could play it out over the course of a whole
year. Each adventure does not actually represent a week’s worth of game time,
but anywhere from a few hours to a few days, essentially enough material that
can be played through in a session or two.

The
campaign was originally released as a series of fifty-two PDFs, and is now
complete. Cubicle Seven Entertainment has divided the campaign into four parts,
each collating thirteen episodes. To date, only War of the Dead: Chapter One and War of the Dead:
Chapter Two have been released. The campaign began with the
player characters – all ordinary men and women – aboard a cruise liner on
holiday. It quickly became apparent that the suspected outbreak of an illness
aboard the ship was something more, and very quickly the player characters
found themselves to be no longer passengers but survivors aboard a vessel of
the walking dead. Eventually as War of the Dead: Chapter
One drew to a close, the player characters made it ashore
only to discover that the infection was not confined to the ship and that
everywhere the dead has arisen.

Subtitled
“Sanctuary and Loss,” War of the Dead: Chapter
Two opens two months into the end of the world. The player
characters have been on the road for a month after the events that lead to
failure of their first refuge, the town of Dalesbury, as described in the final
weeks of War of the Dead: Chapter One.
Theirs is a nomadic existence, forced on the road in the search for supplies –
food, fuel, and ammunition – that across this Hell on Earth have become
increasingly scarce as the cities have become the domain of the Living Dead. As
the group makes its way from one desperate situation, it begins to learn of
events further afield, including news of where the President went – Colorado,
which becomes a much discussed objective as the events of War
of the Dead: Chapter Two progress. After all, this is where
the government went and it surely must be able to see to the needs of the
survivors, right?

In the
interim, the group also learns of possible salvation – Sanctuary. A nearby city
has been supplying the few outlying communities of survivors with supplies. If
the city has been cleared of the Living Dead and is in a position to supply
food, could it be the refuge that the player characters have been looking for? Could
it be the first signs of government since the characters came ashore? Well, the
answer to both questions, is a qualified “yes and no.” Sanctuary is in the
hands of UniMed, a pharmaceuticals corporation that has created a safe zone
protected by the remnants of a US Army battalion. It is even hinted that the
UniMed CEO had information about the Living Dead that the President needed to
hear.

Nothing
is quite what it seems. Of course it is not. It is true though that Sanctuary
offers a degree of respite from the horrors without. Unfortunately, Sanctuary
is the focus of new horrors and ultimately, the characters will find themselves
on the road again, ready for the events of War of the Dead:
Chapter Three.

War
of the Dead: Chapter Two wastes no time in getting down to
the adventure. There is almost no preamble before the GM and the players are
thrown into the difficulty of the apocalypse. It makes a much fuller use of the
Savages Worlds rules, in particular the Mass Combat rules, as the battles in War
of the Dead: Chapter Two escalate in scale and take a more
military feel when compared to the skirmishes of War of the
Dead: Chapter One. If there was a lot of combat in War
of the Dead: Chapter One, then War of the
Dead: Chapter Two ups this, not just in terms of the
hardware to hand, but also the foes faced.

Physically,
War of the Dead: Chapter Two is somewhat
perfunctorily presented. What little art there is, is grim, if sketchy. The
writing though, is rough around the edges and it could have done with a closer
edit. There is some repetition and inconsistency between sections that the GM
will have to adjudicate on. As with the previous chapter, War
of the Dead: Chapter Two could do with maps to make it
easier for the GM to run.

Similarly,
War of the Dead: Chapter Two suffers from
many of issues that were a problem in the previous chapter. It is linear in
nature and it is heavily scripted in places, and it suffers from repetition in
terms of structure and in its encounters. Primarily, it is heavily combative in
nature and this becomes both wearisome and grim. Then again, this is a world in
which the dead walk the earth… That said, the over arcing plot does introduce
several twists to its exploration of the zombie genre and in between the
gunfights, there are numerous NPCs to interact with, many of them quite
memorable.

At the start of this review, it was
stated that War of the Dead: Chapter Two
both addressed and failed to address the repetitious play of the genre and the
question of why the post-apocalypse came about. It addresses the repetition
essentially by replacing it with different forms of repetition, but ones that
still revolve around the slaughtering of the Living Dead. It addresses the
question of “why” only so far, and that is not really a failure upon the
author’s part. After all, this is only the second part of the campaign and as
such, is far too early to fully answer such questions. They will only come in War
of the Dead: Chapter Three and War of the
Dead: Chapter Four. In the meantime, War
of the Dead: Chapter Two is as good as the previous
chapter, which means more good, but not quite perfect zombie roleplaying fodder.

For Your Information

A gamer for over thirty-five years, Pookie has been reviewing games and saying mostly nice things about them for ten of them. His reviews have appeared in Steve Jackson Games' Pyramid and Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, Campaign Magazine, Games International, The Unspeakable Oath, at OgreCave.com, and elsewhere. Currently they appear regularly at Reviews from R'lyeh.

He has edited titles for Triple Ace Games for the Sundered Skies setting; for Goodman Games' Age of Cthulhu line; for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay; for Call of Cthulhu from SixtyStone Press; and various others.

Other facts about Pookie:

He is English.He likes tea.

He has been known as Pookie since he was seven.The nickname has nothing whatsoever to do with small bears and is more leptoidal in nature.The Klingon in him is fond of prunes.